It was a good week for tube, at least as far as I am concerned. I am always on the lookout for any chance to get out of the office and see tube or pipe applications, and I had two such opportunities this week.
First off, the local elementary school needed a new play area. The old one was...

Ask 10 people what they enjoy most about summer and you"ll get 10 different answers. Ask 10 people how they measure summer, and I"ll bet you"ll also get 10 different, and probably more interesting, answers. I suppose the younger-than-10-years-old set can"t quite wrap their arms around the endless...

The U.S.'s birthday has come and gone, and while most of us celebrated in the usual way—a day off from work, a cookout, and some fireworks—how many of us took the time to reflect on our nation"s place in the world? At 233 years, the U.S. is an awfully young country; on the other hand, with a...

Over the past 10 years or so, the big and growing fear among manufacturers has been the steady, unrelenting intrusion of globalization. One pundit described it as economic Darwinism, a nowhere-to-hide environment in which firms that are flexible, adaptable, and aggressive overtake those that...

News stories come and go. Today"s topic of interest likely won"t hold many readers" attention tomorrow, so every day reporters pick up the hot topics and run with them after dropping any that are more than a few days old. Care to dust off a few aged issues? This isn"t the news. I guess you could...

The R&D tax credit. Although it"s just a six-syllable phrase, it might strike more fear in the hearts of fabricators than any other phrase, including the shipment is late or the customer is demanding a refund. Heck, it"s probably worse than hearing a spouse say, My mother is coming to...

Even by the standards established by the world"s strictest, harshest government and its unpredictable dictator, the sentence seemed harsh: 12 years at hard labor. Certainly the punishment doesn"t fit the crime (reporting a news story). I understand that the regime in North Korea doesn"t mess around...

GM filed for bankruptcy, and now it"s time to stand around and criticize. And criticize. And criticize some more. Enter GM bankruptcy into a search engine and you"ll see a flood of articles, editorials, and blogs that provide no shortage of criticism for the company. The supposed mistakes and...

Well, maybe it"s not quite time to greet the summer. In astronomical terms, it starts at the moment of the summer solstice, which will occur at precisely 5:45 a.m. on June 21 this year (I know it sounds crazy, but it varies). However, one thing doesn"t vary from year to year: the conventional...

It"s no secret that the U.S. economy is in the worst recession in decades and that manufacturers are suffering more than they have in recent memory. In its April Report on Business®, the Institute for Supply Management stated that the U.S. economy had been in decline for seven months and...

Panic? Pandemonium? Across?It started in Mexico in late March and spread rapidly; within a month, cases were reported in 11 countries. It"s swine fluH1N1, specificallyand in its wake are anxiety, nervousness, overreactions, and jammed emergency rooms. The outbreak itself was an epidemic, and it"s...

April 15th has come and gone, and no doubt many of us used the occasion to visit the post office, drop a check into the mailbox, and curse the federal government. On a closely related note, you might have noticed that on the same day the Federal Reserve System released one of its economic reports,...

No, you're not a family vacation; no, you're not driving a station wagon on a cross-country trip; no, you're not being bombarded with that question from a back seat full of impatient youngsters. Yes, you're asking yourself that question, and you'd probably like to ask every...

Since its inception in 1924, Plymouth Tube Co. has had a strong faith in the capabilities of its people. Its plant at Eupora, Miss., recently made some changes in the way management formulates strategic plans, and it now includes input from all of the plant employees in executing its strategy. This result is sustained, measurable improvements in safety, quality, and productivity.

How crazy is the automotive sector in this country? I talked with a co-worker who just purchased a Ford F-150® for about $16,000 after a $14,400 rebate from the automaker. Additionally, he said he heard a Northern Illinois automotive dealer was selling a Chrysler PT Cruiser® for $1 with the...